Girasek D C
Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.
Inj Prev. 1999 Mar;5(1):19-25. doi: 10.1136/ip.5.1.19.
To explore what the word accident means to the lay public. This interpretation is of interest because it has been raised by injury control professionals as one justification for discouraging use of that word.
A national telephone survey of 943 adults in the United States was conducted. Respondents were selected at random from households whose phone numbers were generated using random digit dialing techniques. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine if respondent characteristics predicted their interpretations of the word accident.
Eighty three per cent of respondents associated preventability with the word accident, and only 26% felt that accidents were controlled by fate. However, 71% thought that accidents could not be predicted, and 4% felt that accidents were done on purpose. Age, education, income, and race emerged as independent predictors of various accident interpretations.
Only in the case of "unpredictability" does the public's interpretation of the word accident match many experts' expectations. The concept of "unintentionality" is what seems to be communicated most strongly by use of the word accident. Persistent attempts on the part of injury control professionals to eliminate this word from social discourse may result in unintended consequences, which are discussed.
探究“事故”一词对普通大众而言意味着什么。这种解读之所以引人关注，是因为伤害防控专业人员提出，这是劝阻使用该词的一个理由。
对美国943名成年人进行了一项全国性电话调查。受访者是从使用随机数字拨号技术生成电话号码的家庭中随机挑选出来的。进行了双变量和多变量分析，以确定受访者的特征是否能预测他们对“事故”一词的解读。
83%的受访者将可预防性与“事故”一词联系起来，只有26%的人认为事故由命运掌控。然而，71%的人认为事故无法预测，4%的人觉得事故是故意造成的。年龄、教育程度、收入和种族成为各种事故解读的独立预测因素。
只有在“不可预测性”方面，公众对“事故”一词的解读才与许多专家的预期相符。使用“事故”一词似乎最强烈传达的是“非故意性”概念。伤害防控专业人员持续试图从社会话语中消除这个词，可能会导致意想不到的后果，本文对此进行了讨论。
